Visit to Opiyai church near Soroti

Last Sunday Sara and I visited another former student, Daniel, at his church just outside of Soroti town.  The community is called Opiyai B and was within bicycle riding distance.  Sara taught about caring for God's creation, and I preached on the book of Esther.  We really enjoyed the singing because instead of loud electronic keyboards, the had traditional instruments and drums.

I wanted to write a post about this because I enjoyed preaching there so much.  Almost more than any other time I've ever preached in my life, I can definitely say that preaching there on Sunday was fun.  I was having a really good time.  The main reason for this was because out of the people at the church, 95% of them had not only never read the book of Esther, but never even heard the story at all.  It was all new for them.

My sermon was probably an hour and a half long, because there was translation as well, and I summarized the entire story of Esther.  But I really got into telling the story.  The people in the church made it easy because they were very much involved as well.  There were gasps, times of laughter, and the best parts were when an amazing irony or coincidence happened in the story, and then everyone would cheer and clap so loudly that I would have to stop and wait for them to quiet down.  They enjoyed it as a story, but they also understood what I was trying to teach about God's providence.  It was a really great time.  I had been worried that they wouldn't understand the story because it's so long and detailed, but God truly helped me to explain it well enough.  This was an experience that I think would be difficult for me to have found in the US, since many of us grow up learning these Bible stories as children in Sunday School.  It is experiences like these that make ministry very interesting in Uganda.

Sara teaching and our former student, Daniel, translating for her.

The Sunday School performed a song for us.